


Don’t Stray from the Path.

by BarPurple



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Monsters, Purgatory, only passing references to the characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-23
Updated: 2014-06-23
Packaged: 2018-02-05 22:40:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1834825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BarPurple/pseuds/BarPurple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stay on the path is the warning given to every adventurous traveler, but who made the path in the first place?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don’t Stray from the Path.

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Legends from Monster Heaven](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1095433) by [afreezingnote](https://archiveofourown.org/users/afreezingnote/pseuds/afreezingnote). 



This is a forest of never-ending dusk. No birds sing at the setting sun here, for no sun has ever warmed this forest with its rays, nor are there any birds. No animals rustle through the leaf litter, and no insects feed on the carrion. 

There is life of a kind in this desolate place for this is the final known destination of every slain monster. Every vampire, werewolf and ghoul that has ever fallen to a hunter, hero, or just the dumb lucky comes to this place. Here blood lust rules supreme. The leaves of the trees whisper with the snarls and screams of the weak, and more often than not the river runs rusty with gore.

In human fairy tales the adventurous are warned to keep to the path when travelling through a forest. To stray from the path is to fall victim to the monsters that lurk in the shadows. No bold wanderer has ever asked who forged the path? They have never considered what brave soul first cleared safe passage through a place of untold danger. In this place, in this forest the monsters tell the story of how the path was made. It is a story they know only too well.

\---{}---

In the twilight land of monsters there once came a man, dragged here by the death throes of the oldest among us. He came here whole and living, the stink of his soul and the beating of his human heart a call to us all. He should have been easy prey, but this man was a hunter the most infamous of his reviled kind. He set his sights on returning to the world of day and night and he would let nothing stand in his way. He cut a bloody swathe across the forest searching for his brother-in-arms, the fallen angel who played God. Before he found this seraph he found one who offered him aid; one of our own a vampire who fought beside the hunter. 

The path they fought along is marked by cairns of skulls and bones hang from the trees. The stretch of river where they found the angel is tainted still by his Grace. These places are shunned by every monster in this place for we never know if the hunter will return one day. It is said that the river babbles the name of the hunter who cleared the path as it dances over the stones; Winchester.

\---{}---

This is a forest of never-ending dusk and here the human concept of time is fluid. This place casts its shadow forwards and backwards through the ages. Perhaps this is why there are no human tales of the first hero to clear the path through the deep and dangerous forests. Perhaps all the paths are just echoes of the path blazed in this forest by a hunter and his brothers-in-arms.


End file.
